Amid acrimony, Bangor Area pushes forward 2.2 percent tax increase

The $49.2 million budget spares major cuts, but some board members aren't satisfied.

May 29, 2012|By Andrew McGill, Of The Morning Call

No, the yelling inside the Bangor Area School District board room Tuesday night wasn't as loud as the thunderstorm outside. It just seemed that way.

Amid acrimony and accusations that the administration held figures too close to the vest, school directors passed a $49.2 million proposed budget that increases taxes by 2.2 percent, a disappointment to conservative board members who made a stand for cuts.

Bangor's 2012-13 budget uses more than $144,000 from district reserves, a concession to the reality that taxes can't be raised more and further reductions will be difficult to pass.

"We don't have a lot left to cut," Superintendent Patricia Mulroy said.

But Tuesday's meeting gave little clarity as to what those cuts will actually look like. Business Manager Steve Wiencek gave directors four columns of choices, ranging from the mild — cutting a bus — to the extreme — no French, no kindergarten and no elementary music.

The administration's preferred proposal combines the 2.2 percent tax increase with a menu of mild cuts, slicing off a few positions through attrition, rejiggering teachers among schools and eliminating in-school suspensions, among others. The biggest savings would come from eliminating the district's director-of-curriculum position, recouping $105,000.

Options to get the district's tax increase to zero are more drastic. Eliminating kindergarten and elementary music would save the district $900,000, administration figures showed. Also on the chopping block are three custodians, several tax rebates and high school wood shop.

Hold a second, directors said: Eliminating these programs hasn't even been discussed. Most board members showed little appetite for the deepest cuts.

But a few cast an approving eye, saying it is high time the district posted a zero percent tax increase — or even lower.

Midway through the meeting, Director Ken Brewer loudly moved to lower the maximum tax increase the board could consider to 1.5 percent. If he had his druthers, they'd start there and cut lower.

"We could've got this to zero way back," he said. "That should have been on the table."

Even former county councilman and frequent gadfly Ron Angle threw his weight behind the proposal, telling directors they were running out of time to consider cuts.

But the lower-tax motion failed, with conservatives Brewer, Goffredo and Toni Lynch losing in a 3-5 vote. The board then passed the plan with the 2.2 percent increase, with the vote reversed. The tax would go up 1.098 mills to 51.018 mills, meaning the owner of a property assessed at $50,000 would pay nearly $55 more.

Most directors agreed they'd rather have the largest range of taxing power possible.

It wasn't a pretty vote, rife with accusations the administration had waited until the last minute to notify board members of potential cuts — let alone the more drastic possibilities, like cutting kindergarten.

Wiencek sighed. If he had his way, that final column that carries the most pain wouldn't even be on the table.

"That one column, that allowed us to get to less than zero," he said. "I don't know that you're going to find a majority of the administration team that was in favor of that column at all."